Grocery store encounter

A simple encounter this morning at the local grocery store reminded me of what inspired me to become an interpreter many years ago. At that time I had a few American Sign Language (ASL) classes under my belt and was hardly what one would call conversational, let alone fluent! But I found myself at an evening PTA meeting where there was a deaf mom with no interpreter. Someone who knew I signed a little asked me if I could at least relay to this deaf woman SOME of what was going on so she wouldn’t be so left out. Terrible as I was, I was the best “interpreter” in the room, so I agreed to give it a try. I’m sure I only got across about one tenth of the information, but still there were moments - these wonderful moments - when she understood me and I could sense her relief and appreciation. I found that I liked bridging the gap between two cultures. That’s the day I decided to become an interpreter. I enrolled in classes at Gallaudet University (then College) and immersed myself in Deaf culture and ASL. I went on to become a certified professional Sign Language interpreter, and I worked in the field for many years before I had my son.

Today’s encounter took me back to that PTA meeting so long ago. I speak a little Spanish - again, not what anyone would call conversational. I ended up in the grocery line behind two young men who looked to be Mexican. They were buying a large bag of limes and the checker asked one of them how many they had, since they were on sale 5 for something. Turns out they don’t speak a word of English, so I - almost without thinking - said “Quantos?”, while pointing to the limes. At first he looked at me funny, thrown off probably by me speaking Spanish (or maybe wondering why I cared how many limes he had)! Then he quickly got that I was interpreting for the checker and he said, “Oh, I don’t know”, which I relayed. Once an interpreter, always an interpreter, I guess. If I can help, even a little with the language, I just HAVE to! Then we chatted a bit while the checker counted out the limes.  I wished that my Spanish was better, just like I had often wished that my Sign Language was better.  As the two guys - who I found out WERE in fact from Mexico - walked out, the checker, a young sweet-faced teen, shook his head and said emphatically, “I don’t know A WORD of Spanish!”, to which I easily replied, “Oh, you should SO learn some. It’s great!” I expected him to respond with a good-natured, “Yeah, that would probably come in handy” and was surprised when he emphatically declared, “No way! I just refuse!” I frowned at him as I probed a little further, asking why, especially since there were so many Latinos in the area now. I was weirdly relieved to find out that he wasn’t just against Spanish-speakers, he was just negative in general. Maybe it was a teen thing. He told me that all of his friends were taking Spanish in high school so he took German, just to go against the tide. He seemed pretty proud of his attitude and took pleasure in sharing several more examples of it with me.  Okay, whatever.

That boy doesn’t what he’s missing! Not that taking German in high school is a bad thing. All languages are beautiful and fascinating, but the best part of learning one is being able to use it with other native speakers. I, myself, took years of French, but to this day have never had the opportunity to use it so, of course, I remember very little. But a student taking Spanish in school now could actually find people to practice with every day, without having to apply for a passport. If the thousands and thousands of Spanish-speakers in this country only spoke English to us - now what fun would that be?